Of the 1.56 lakh who have signed up for the JEE (Advanced) this year, 20% are girls.The rest, 1.26 lakh, are boys.Over 21% of those who had made the cut after the JEE (Main) dropped out; in all 1.98 lakh candidates were shortlisted to take this competitive test for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology .

The 30,015 girls who will now take the advanced test will pay Rs 1,000 as exam fee, like SCST and physically challenged candidates. All others taking the exam in India will pay Rs 2,000 each. Those appearing for the exam at the Dubai centre will pay a test fee of US$ 220.
Last year, 1.24 lakh boys and 28,000 girls were eligible to take this exam. While there was one student from the third gender, there are none this time around.

The cut-off score for eligibility for JEE (Advanced) is 100 for general category students. Last year, the eligibility bar was 105, down from the previous year when it was 115, indicating that the paper has been tougher.

The high count of examinees also prompted IITs to set up exam halls in 16 additional cities. In Maharashtra, Aurangabad, Nashik and Kolhapur have been added to the existing centres in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. “Most cities have been added in the western and southern zones,“ said a professor associated with the exam.